More election results released
By Ryan LewisEditor
While the Allegan County Board of Canvassers had not yet certified the Nov. 6 election results before press deadline, more preliminary results are now available.
Allegan schools
According to county clerk Joyce Watts, write-in candidate Jeff McLaughlin won one of two six-year terms on the Allegan Public Schools Board of Education.
With 95 votes, McLaughlin outpaced fellow write-ins Margaret Brown with 55 and Ben Knight with 36.
Current board president Mark Davidhizar retained his seat with 3,170 votes.
Cheshire Township
Republican Supervisor Steve Revor won re-election with 551 votes. Don Jorgenson ran as a write-in; there were a total of 69 write-in votes.
The rest of the board ran unopposed.
Hamilton schools
Final results were delayed until early Wednesday morning after one precinct in Holland ran out of ballots for voters in Hamilton Community Schools.
Watts said poll workers there had to duplicate more than 50 ballots and then hand-tabulate them.
Challengers Loren Joostberns (with 3,811 votes) and Melissa VanDerHulst 3,702) won the two six-year seats on the school board.
Incumbent Ralph Pax lost his seat, earning only 2,096. Another challenger, Ingrid Behnke won 1,512.
The district’s non-homestead operating millage renewal, good for two years, passed by a 4,329-3,094 vote.
Martin schools
Watts said write-in candidate Rosemary Andrews won the race for the lone, four-year term on the Martin Public Schools Board of Education.
While no one appeared on the ballot, Andrews garnered 50 write-in votes, while Scott Veeder got 34.
Otsego city
The City of Otsego’s fire truck millage was approved by a majority of voters, but that wasn’t enough, as the city charter required a supermajority for it to pass.
Only 762 voted in favor of the millage; to pass, it needed 956 of the 1,592 votes cast.
The city was attempting to raise $200,000 toward purchasing a $556,000 new fire truck.
Wayland city
A high number of spoiled ballots were blamed for delays in posting results in the City of Wayland.
Mayor Tim Bala was reelected with 852 votes to the 538 of his challenger, former police chief Dan Miller.
Challenger Tracy Bivins won a seat to the city council with 788 votes. Incumbent Jeff Hudson retained his seat with 789 votes.
Incumbent Ron Kobish lost his seat with only 588 votes; another challenger, Timothy Rose, earned 696 votes.
City clerk Michelle Herman said there were 79 spoiled ballots—those which contain more votes than are allowed for a race.
“It was mostly due to the Michigan Supreme Court race,” Herman said. “Many people over-voted in one of those judicial sections.”
Ballot tabulators alert election workers that ballots have been over-voted; voters are then allowed to fill out a new ballot to correct the mistake.
Herman said the city normally wouldn’t get more than a handful of spoiled ballots, and there is a lot of paperwork that goes into handling them. She said election results were not uploaded until 3:15 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 8.
She said there were no major equipment malfunctions that led to any of the delays.
Staff writer Dan Pepper contributed to this story.